Don't miss 'Phil Spector'

Saturday

Mar 23, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The dramatic pairing of Helen Mirren and Al Pacino should be announced with a boxing poster: British understatement meets American operatic. The force behind "Prime Suspect" takes on the face behind Michael Corleone, Roy Cohn and Jack Kevorkian. It's a bout, or rather, a movie you just can't miss.

The dramatic pairing of Helen Mirren and Al Pacino should be announced with a boxing poster: British understatement meets American operatic. The force behind "Prime Suspect" takes on the face behind Michael Corleone, Roy Cohn and Jack Kevorkian. It's a bout, or rather, a movie you just can't miss.

Everything about the first 15 minutes of "Phil Spector" (9 p.m. Sunday, HBO) is deliberately procedural. Even dull. Lawyer Linda Kenney Baden (Mirren) arrives at the unremarkable law office of notorious lawyer Bruce Cutler (Jeffrey Tambor), hired by legendary music producer Phil Spector (Pacino) precisely because Cutler was the man who got mobster John Gotti acquitted.

And Spector needs the best lawyer he can get after Lana Clarkson, a former actress, is found dead of a gunshot wound in his mansion. Baden arrives, sick, hungry and tired, but still full of nervous energy and looking for ways to make Cutler's client overcome his horrible reputation for volcanic behavior, gunplay, threats of violence, and the damaging testimony of his ex-wife and a parade of girlfriends and one-night stands.

The mechanics of the legal procedural vanish when Baden arrives, alone, at Spector's "castle." Spector emerges from the shadows to greet his guest, not with legal chitchat, but with a long harangue about the making of the 1968 Dion single "Abraham, Martin and John." In fact, the next 15 minutes or so belong almost exclusively to Pacino/Spector and his extended rants, often on subjects with little or nothing to do with his case.

Both Baden and the audience are immediately aware that we are in the presence of a rambling obsessive. Spector announces himself as a brilliant, paranoid, grandiose, mad recluse obsessed with his place in a history and completely unaware that his "legend" means nothing to anybody younger than 50. To call this extended visit anything less than spellbinding would be a lie.

What screenwriter David Mamet has done here is turn a courtroom drama into a rock 'n' roll "Sunset Blvd." with the genders reversed. Like Norma Desmond, Spector is all but entombed by his glorious past, capable only of luring women to his dangerous lair with money and keeping them there with threats; Baden is fully aware that she is the latest in that long list of women. Only she harbors more than a suspicion, based on evidence, that her client is innocent.

The central question of the case, and the drama, is how do you defend a client who frightens and repels you and is certain to alienate a jury as well? But the trial, the facts and the real history of the case take a backseat to Mirren and Pacino at work. This may emerge as one of the more memorable performances in Pacino's long career. And that's saying a lot.

— Television stars of the past return in several Saturday night television movies.

When you're making a Syfy Saturday night shocker, casting the movie and cobbling together a title is 90 percent of the effort. This has never been more true than with "Chupacabra vs. the Alamo" (9 tonight), starring Erik Estrada ("CHiPs").

DEA agent Carlos Seguin (Estrada) suspects that a horrific rise in violence may not be explained by gang activity, but by a mythical creature using drug trafficker's tunnels to navigate the area around San Antonio. When the monsters besiege the city, Carlos is forced to enlist gang members to protect the Alamo itself. Will the Texas shrine be saved?

— Apparently 30 percent of Americans believe in the existence of Bigfoot. And I am happy to have avoided such people for my entire life. Wherever they are, they might enjoy "Monsters and Mysteries in America" (10 p.m. Sunday on Destination America). It celebrates the unending search for Sheepsquatch, Sasquatch and Mothman, among others.

— Female physicians and doctors' wives are at the center of the documentary series "Married to Medicine" (9 p.m. on Bravo), set in Atlanta.

Headed to the final round on "American Ninja Warrior" (8 p.m. on NBC, TV-PG) ... On two helpings of "Cops" (Fox, TV-PG): running from rehab (8 p.m.) and running from the law (8:30 on r) ... Celebrities take a dive on "Splash" (8 on ABC, repeat, TV-PG).

A glossy marketing campaign on "All-Star Celebrity Apprentice" (9 on NBC, TV-PG) ... The mayor becomes a murder suspect on "Family Guy" (9 on Fox, TV-14) ... Victoria needs help on "Revenge" (9 on ABC, TV-PG) ... Stung at the spelling bee on "American Dad" (9:30 on Fox, TV-14) ... Death in the theater crowd on "The Mentalist" (10 on CBS, TV-14).

Kevin McDonough can be reached at kevin.tvguy@gmail.com.

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